The Jade Writer Girl

Changing a blown tire on a burning black bitumen road in abandoned outback town was not high on Tim’s list of “shit I want to get done today”.

Okay, so he might have been speeding. But it wasn’t as if he was expecting anyone else to come along and run straight out in front his car. End of the world and all that. These people were supposed to be dead.

Still, as he swiped sweat from his face and wrenched the last nut into place, he supposed he had to go find the little twerp.

Rules being rules, he couldn’t exactly leave her alone out in the middle of whoop whoop.

He sat back and tried to wipe some of the grease layering his hands onto his shorts. He glanced around, dark eyes flickering amongst the scant few buildings between sunburnt trees and brown grass.

A few stray kangaroos were poking their heads out from behind trees and overgrown lawn bushes, curious now that the noise had died down.

Two weeks ago, in another similarly abandoned town, Tim had almost copped it from a big Red when he’d accidentally stepped into it’s territory looking for blankets. All six foot and muscle, Tim had decided that particular house was worth a miss and high tailed it out of there.

He scrunched his nose and did another scan for the girl, hoping she was crouched behind a bin or a rusting car rather than inside one of the buildings where God knows what lurked.

He shuddered. From kangaroos to snakes to (just once in a place that had been recently flooded) a crocodile, there was no telling what you’d find in places these days.

Aside from all the bodies, of course. But that was to be expected.

Tim sighed and pushed himself to his feet. Time to go and find the brat.

He picked one of two open store fronts and stomped across the baking street towards the shattered display.

Tim stepped through the broken glass door frame, glancing up to see a small life-less bell gathering dust. Reaching up one grease stained hand, he gave the bell a small tap, announcing his presence to the kid with a jangle.

He smirked, revelling in a sound that had once been so normal; yet now was out of place in this new world he lived. Bittersweet melancholy attempted to coil it’s way through his abdomen but Tim brushed it off with a shrug.

It was too hot melancholy.

‘God, I’d kill for an ice-cream,’ he muttered as his eyes adjusted to the dark.

From the back corner of overturned tables and piled up cushions—a rudimentary fort at best—came a small, curious voice.

He leaned down again, grabbed her by the arm and hauled her—she was surprisingly heavy for such a scrawny kid—up onto her feet. She squawked again. Like the cockatoos in the morning fighting over some meal or other.

With a fierce glare, she kicked out at him and with that motion, seeing her fully for the first time, Tim discovered the problem.

‘Ah shit,’ he muttered and dropped her.

She landed on her feet, lost her balance and fell on her arse. An arse that was covered in a pair of old, dirty, loose blue jeans. Blue jeans that had a very, distinct, unavoidably obvious patch of red.

Tim sighed. He looked up at the ceiling. He waited for the earth to open up and swallow him whole.

‘You’re not dying,’ he said flatly, still looking up at the ceiling. ‘You’re just…a girl.’

‘I’m bleeding!’ she sobbed.

‘Yep,’ said Tim. ‘I see that.’

‘So I’m dying, just go away already before you catch it too.’

Tim rolled his eyes and looked back down at her. ‘I can’t catch…that. I’m a boy. It doesn’t work that way. Look, how old are you? Didn’t anyone ever tell you about…that.’

‘About…what?’ she sniffled, swiping at her eyes with grubby hands.

‘About…well…women’s things. You know. That. Bleeding…and stuff. Ugh, this sucks. Look, you’re a girl, right? And…well, when girls hit, well, about your age I guess, they start to…uh, become a women?’

She sniffled again. ‘Why are you asking me? I don’t know!’

Tim groaned. ‘I’m not asking, I just…I don’t know how to explain. This isn’t exactly my area of expertise you know. I generally avoid conversations about…this.’

‘But…but what is this? I’m…I’m not dying? Really?’

‘No. Might seem like it, might feel like it sometimes too. From what I gather, anyway. I wouldn’t know. Like I said, it only happens to girls.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you’re a girl.’

‘But why?’

‘Well…because girl’s give birth. And this is how.’

‘I’m gonna have a baby?’ she shrieked.

‘No! No, no that’s not what I meant. I just meant, this is your bodies way of, I dunno getting ready for that stuff. Look, if you come with me, I can help, okay? I can find you some new clothes and a place to get cleaned up and someone who can actually explain this shit to you better than me. But all you really need to know is that, for the next forty or so years, once a month, you’re gonna turn into a raging, moody, hormonal mess. And that means bleeding a bit. It sucks, but that’s just the way it is.’

‘But I’m not dying?’

‘Nope.’

‘This…is normal?’

‘Yep.’

‘Oh.’

Tim nodded. ‘Yep.’

‘This is gonna keep happening?’

‘For a few days. It’ll go away. Then in a month it’ll happen again.’

‘Oh,’ she frowned, fingers picking at the ragged blanket Tim had knocked aside. ‘That does suck.

‘You don’t even know the worst part yet,’ said Tim, a slow grin working onto his face.